We'd Be Comfy, Cozy
by Moonlit Lightning
Summary: COMPLETE! Tobias saw much and never forgot that bloody day. Johanna married Anthony and moved by the sea, but the past haunts her. Anthony takes her to London years later, and they find an alone, crazy Tobias. Can they all move on, as what's dead is dead?
1. Tobias Ragg

This is based off of the musical, rather than the movie. If you just got home from the movie theater and are staring at the screen saying, "Whaaat?! _That_ didn't happen in canon!", it probably did.

"By the sea, Mr. Todd, we'd be comfy-cozy,  
By the sea, Mr. Todd, where there's no one nosy."  
- Mrs. Lovett, _Final Sequence_, _Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street_.

* * *

Chapter One: Tobias Ragg

_I have to get out of here,_ was my first disgusted thought. Oh, God, I had to get out, because the best pies in London, that everyone loved so much, were…

No! Why was the door locked? Mrs. Lovett would never lock the door on me—Mr. Todd must have done it! I knew he couldn't be trusted; this horror in the bakehouse was his fault.

But there was a nagging thought attacking my mind. Mrs. Lovett made the pies. She had to know what was in them…but she would never serve human pies. Mr. Todd must be deceiving her, like I'd said!

I had to protect her. We would run away from here, escape London, and we could go live the way she wanted: by the sea. Like a real family, like a mother and her son.

But first I had to get out of the basement.

_Thud_. The sound came from above, but what was it? There was a creak of hinges right over me; I dove out of the way just in time. Something hit the floor where I had been standing. Trembling, I crept over to examine it.

Oh, God. Oh, _God_, it was a _body_, it was the corpse of Beadle Bamford. I had heard him singing with Mrs. Lovett upstairs just a moment ago—I had joined in. He would do no more singing with a slit throat; there was no question that he was dead.

I had to hide, now. Mr. Todd was a murderer, and I needed to stay safe to protect both myself and Mrs. Lovett.

They called for me—as if the barber's lies would lure me out! Hearing Mrs. Lovett repeat my warning back to me nearly broke my heart, but I didn't dare to reveal myself—I couldn't! Shock paralyzed me in my hideaway in the cellar; fear roared in my ears, drowning out all feeling except my heart's desperate beat.

When their last cries ("Toby…? Where are you, lad?") faded into echoes' ghosts, the fear still kept me locked in position. I freed myself in time to see Mr. Todd waltzing Mrs. Lovett around the bakehouse. But I could tell something was wrong; the barber was a demon, even if I was the only one who knew.

"_Not to worry, Mum."_

The oven door was open. I realized a second too late.

"_I may not be smart, but I ain't dumb."_

Her screams froze the blood in my veins. The bakehouse reeled dizzyingly around me. Lightheaded, I bent down to steady myself.

He was cradling the old woman's body. How many times had Mum told me, "Toby! Throw the old woman out!"?.

I had made a promise to Mum.

"_Nothing's gonna harm you, not while I'm around."_

"Patty-cake!" It was my voice, but it seemed disembodied, out of my control. "Patty-cake, baker-man! Bake me a cake!" My eyes darted around the bakehouse wildly. "No—bake me a _pie_!" If he heard me, the demon did not respond. "To delight my eye…and I shall sigh if the crust be high!" I was close now, and it struck me to examine the beggar woman's face—I had never paid much attention to her.

I bent over the two, and Mr. Todd suddenly shoves me away. I stumbled back, stepped on something that slid out from under my foot, and fell to the floor. I turned around, propping myself up. My hand brushed the cold silver handle of one of Mr. Todd's razors.

"_I'll send them howlin', I don't care…"_

I didn't have to decide to pick it up.

"…_I got ways."_

The blade glinted, gilded with the oven's light. Mrs. Lovett was burning in there. "Mr. Todd…" I growled, approaching vengefully. The beggar woman's neck was cut like the Beadle's…Mr. Todd's neck, then, was my target.

"Pat him," I hissed the nursery rhyme, "and prick him," I was behind him, "and mark him with a B." Very slowly, he tilted his head back, exposing his neck for me. "And put him in the oven—" I glanced at it and gritted my teeth, "for baby and me!"

A factory whistle drowned away any screams, but I doubted the demon cried out or felt the cut; he sensed merely the frozen hands of death on his neck. His head slumped over the dead beggar; his blood blanketed her.

There would be no life by the sea. In the room filled with murder, I stood and stared at the much-used weapon in my hand. My hand was gloved with the blood of another. There was a bang, and the door was forced open.

A blonde woman dressed as a sailor stood with a man behind some constables. I glanced at them, seeing my stretched reflection in one of the officers' badges. There was a blur that I recognized as myself, but it was white-topped. Dropping the razor, I raised a bloody hand to my head. Beneath blood's thick crimson film, the hair I held was white.

I stumbled back to the meat grinder; these other people were insignificant. Three times through, she had said. That's the secret that makes them juicy and tender. Three times through.


	2. Johanna Hope

Chapter Two: Johanna Hope

Anthony came back with the police, which was very odd. I'd thought we were hiding from them, after all. Still, I thought pensively, Anthony knew what he was doing.

When we got to the bakehouse, the pie-boy Anthony had told me about was turning the crank of the meat grinder. The lad could not have been more than ten years old, but Anthony had not told me the boy's hair was white. It seemed rather strange that he wouldn't mention that, but I reflected that it was not really an important fact.

Judge Turpin's body in the bakehouse disturbed me, but it did not upset me. He who had called me his daughter had wished to marry me, so I felt no affection for him. Beadle Bamford, too, was no great loss.

Then there was the dead beggar woman, which gave me a nostalgic sorrow. I had pitied her, and it was almost a relief that she had died. Anthony identified the dead man holding her as Mr. Todd, which I also thought weird.

The whole experience was unnerving, and I was glad when Anthony led me to the waiting carriage. He slept on the dark ride, but I remained awake, too used to living in the darkness. At the Judge's estate, I had had a shadowed light; in the asylum, the shade was real.

I remained awake through our whole train ride the next day, having not slept a wink since Anthony freed me. He had his arm around me but slept peacefully, and I stared out the window at the passing scenery. How much of the world would we see? I had read all about life beyond the estate, but the memories of places I did not know were like dusty roses; beautiful, forgotten, and fragile, and likely to fall apart if I touched them.

Lakes that we passed were oceans to me; rivers were as awe-inspiring as mile-high waterfalls. Grass was amazing, trees were splendid. I hope that, when the entire world has been seen, we settle down in the country…or by the sea…

Paris was splendid. Anthony and I had a very romantic time there, and I bought some clothes that did not make me think of Judge Turpin or Mr. Fogg. There is no use in dwelling on the past.

We reached the actual ocean, and the fact that anything could be so wide was breathtaking. The ship we took to Spain was a work of art; the closest real thing I had ever seen had been inside a bottle on Judge Turpin's mantle.

In Spain, we were married. My wedding ring was set with the pearls of Spain and the rubies of Tibet, which I eventually saw. The mountains of Peru, in due time, were viewed, and we visited the Dardanelles; we sailed the world and saw its wonders.

And then came home to London.

But we did not linger there, for the painful memories, and we eventually made a home by the seaside. Anthony began an apprenticeship with a blacksmith; he went in to learn and assist every day except Sunday. I kept house while he was out. I wrote my life's story, and the story of my parents (the story I wished for them to have), and I read as much as I could.

In the summer, Anthony and I laid on the beach in our bathing dresses. On the fifth anniversary of our escape from Fogg's, Anthony's mentor died of age, and Anthony took over the smith, which was very nearby. He was busier than ever, but I found ways to occupy my time.

I taught myself to sing, as I could not fly. I took up drawing. I sketched mostly nature—flowers and birds, the world I had never known. When he slept, I sometimes drew Anthony, for I often went sleepless.

The darkness reminded me of Fogg's—one night, a sea of blondes came to be on my canvas, all howling at the moon through barred windows. I drew, many times, the scene of Fogg's death. A close-up of my hand on the gun; a panorama; the view that Fogg must have seen; the bullet as it hit him…I drew it all.

Yet my favorite thing to sketch was a white-haired child, mindlessly operating a meat grinder. In my pictures, his eyes were sad and scared, but with an odd confidence at the same time. Eventually, I drew him doing other things; beating a small drum, and addressing a crowd.

Writing became my main habit, and the white-haired boy became my main character. He was a ten-year-old named Benjamin in my stories; a charismatic, hopeful, sweet lad. The color of his hair was due to a shock he received when he was young, but this made him somehow more innocent.

When Anthony was out, I started talking to Benjamin. I was pretending of course—for there was no such boy—but I imagined him telling me his secrets, and those became my stories.

"Anthony?"

"Yes, my love?"

"Why don't we have any children?"

True, this was not proper dinnertime conversation, but I did want an answer. I mean, he needn't have choked on his ale.

"Wha—I—uh—I mean—do—well—do you want to have children, Johanna?"

I thought on it. "Only if you do," I said finally.

"I think I do." Our eyes met.

"Kiss me!"

Eight years had passed since we left London, and Anthony one day announced that we were going back. He had many things to trade, and when I brought up my pictures, he brightened.

"They are beautiful, my sweet," he told me. I did not show him the haunting ones, the images that kept me awake all night. "If you could bear to part with some, it would not hurt for a little extra income."

I was willing to part with them. The chilling pictures needed to be shared, and the quaint ones would sell. I placed my creations in a folder, planning to sell all but two works; a picture and the accompanying story. Benjamin's life was the tale I would preserve, and the pale-haired boy turning the meat grinder was the sketch.


	3. Anthony Hope

Chapter Three: Anthony Hope

She walked the streets of London curiously, as if she had not lived there her whole life. We ran past Kiri's Lane, her old abode. The estate, we knew, would be untenanted, for superstition prevailed need. In the square, she sold her stories and sketches, and all that she offered was bought. I knew they would; Johanna drew as well as she sang, and she had a better voice than a nightingale. I strolled the streets with my beautiful Johanna, holding hands and singing traditional songs that she had learned in the country.

"_If one bell rings in the Tower of Brey," _she crooned, _"ding, dong! Your true love will stay! Ding, dong! One bell today, in the Tower of Brey! Ding, dong!"_

The peeling paint above a store that read "Mrs. Mooney's Pie Shop" held little interest for either of us. _"If two bells ring in the Tower of Brey, ding, dong—!"_

"_Ding, dong!" _I raised my voice with hers.

"_Your true love will stray!"_

"_Ding, dong!" _continued Johanna.

"_Ding, dong!" _I sang, squeezing her hand to show that I would never stray.

"_Two bells today in the Tower of Brey! Ding, dong! Ding, dong!" _We looked at some of the peddlers' stalls as we walked. No harm in seeing what trinkets were for sale.

"_If three bells ring in the Tower of Brey," _Johanna went on, _"ding, dong!"_

"_Ding, dong!" _I took the next bell.

"_Ding, dong!" _another voice called.

"_Then love's gone away!"_ There was definitely a third voice.

"_Ding, dong!"_ Johanna sang.

"_Ding, dong!" _I added.

"_Ding, dong!"_ The unknown person finished the bells. Johanna and I stopped singing to listen. _"Three bells today," _the stranger continued,_ "in the Tower of Brey! Ding, dong! Ding, dong! Ding, dong!"_

Johanna glanced around in the busy road, locking on the source of sound and going to the singer, pulling me with her. It was a boy—he looked very young, maybe fifteen—wearing a black cap and tattered too-small clothes. He was standing on a corner and clutching a prettily patterned purse close to him.

At the end of the verse, he stopped singing, looked around as though confused, and then took up a new song. _"Ladies an' gennelmen, may I have your attention, perleeze?"_

Johanna and I glanced around. No one gave the boy their attention. We watched him, almost unable to look away. If he noticed the couple staring at him, the boy gave no notion. He just kept calling, staring at an old building across the street with a strange emotion etched on his face. Was it anxiety? Fear?

I missed the next few lines, attempting to read the chipped sign on the building that the boy was staring at. _"-r-. -o-et-'s --a- -i-s"_ was all I could make out. The boy reminded me of the half-mad beggar woman all those years ago._ "…an' illustrious barber," _he was singing when I looked back at him, and then he gripped the purse so hard that his knuckles went white, _"Pirelli by name."_

Johanna looked at me questioningly, as if to ask who the boy was.

"'_e sold me a liquid more preshus than gold—"_

I shrugged. How could I know the people of London? I had known only a handful of denizens here eight years ago, I knew three to be dead, and one was holding my hand.

"_I rubbed it in daily like wot I was towld—"_

Johanna turned back to stare at the boy, looking troubled.

"_An' behold—" _The boy doffed his cap. _"Only thir'y days old!"_

"My God," I breathed. I knew him. Johanna gasped.

It was hard not to remember a boy with snow-white hair.

"Benjamin!" Johanna said.

_Huh? _I thought. "No," I told her in an undertone, "no, the boy's name is Tobias."

"Oh…" she faltered, looking at the folder she had brought her creations in. "Oh, yes…T-Tobias…" She looked up at the boy again, and then pressed closer to me. "What's happened to him?" she whispered.

"I think…" I murmured to her, "I think he's gone mad."

She looked at him sadly. "Poor thing," she said sympathetically. We watched him for a few more seconds. "Can we take him home with us, Anthony?"

"Uh," I stammered, "uh, what?"

"Oh, please?" she asked, twirling her sweet yellow hair around one finger. "There's plenty of room in the house, and who knows what's to become of him out here. He _is_ only a child, poor dear. Oh, can't we take him in, darling?"

"Well…"

"Our child might like an older brother."

I stared at her. "What?"

"Wouldn't the four of us have a nice time?"

"Four?"

"Yes." Johanna lifted my hand in hers and pointed at Tobias. "One." She pressed our entwined hands to my chest. "Two." She moved our hands to her neck. "Three." My wife slid our hands down to her stomach. "Four."

There really was no way to argue with her after that. She led the way as we approached the boy. I was a little wary of the crazy ex-assistant to a murderer, but I knew Johanna wanted this dearly, and I could not displease her, not for all the rubies in Tibet.

"Excuse me?" she asked Tobias. His attention snapped to her. I looked away when he stared at me, still haunted by the memory of the bakehouse.

"Yes, ma'am?" he asked shakily, pronouncing "ma'am" as "mum".

"What's your name, lad?" she asked.

It was a good place to start, I reckoned. The boy looked distressed and grasped the purse even tighter. "I've Pirelli's old purse, Mr. Todd's old blade, and Mrs. Lovett's old apron…but my name is Tobias Ragg, ma'am."

An odd introduction, but it was less mad than I had expected. "My name is Johanna Hope." She gestured to me. "This is my husband, Anthony." I gave the boy a small grin and a wave.

Tobias' brow knotted as he looked at me. "Don't I…know you…mister…?" he asked haltingly.

"I…I don't think so," I stammered. "I—I mean, I—"

"Tobias, where do you live?" Johanna interrupted my babbling.

The boy looked at her blankly, mystified. "Right here," he said, gesturing to the street.

I looked at one of the street signs as Johanna continued talking to the lad. The sign told me just what I had expected.

_Fleet Street._

The worn text labeling the shop that Tobias had been staring at suddenly made sense to me. _"Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pies"_ was what it said. I needed to read nothing to tell me that there was a tonsorial parlor above it.

"…we've a lovely house by the sea," Johanna was telling the boy excitedly. "Ooh, I bet you'd love it. Would you like to come with us, Tobias?"

"By the sea…" he repeated, staring at the empty house of horror.

"Yes, that's right," she said, smiling encouragingly.

Slowly, jerkily, he nodded. "Anything you say," he said, "anything you say."

* * *

We took Tobias back with us. He was given a guest bedroom in our home, and quickly settled in. He owned only three things: his purse, a waiter's apron, and a silver-handled razor. Tobias became my apprentice and was very efficient at helping me smith, despite his odd quirks. He would sometimes stop and stare at our furnace, eyes strangely concentrated, body tense. He often sang to himself as he worked. I finally put him managing the counter, and that made him slightly more outgoing. He wore a hat to cover his colorless hair, lest the customers be perturbed by it, and seemed more normal when interacting with people. Though I could tell the job did not particularly interest Tobias, it kept him preoccupied. I would find him another job at a later date. 

Mine and Johanna's daughter, Lucy Eleanor Hope, was born in late February. Toby, as Johanna nicknamed him, was fascinated by her. He would sit in her room and just watch her, with the closest thing I'd ever seen to a smile on his face. Often, the three of us would sing to little Lucy, which seemed to comfort Toby as much as it did my daughter.

Toby became as much my child as Lucy was. Even though he was only six years younger than Johanna, she looked on him with a mother's pride. Toby's mood changed often; he would be radiantly happy and suddenly retreat into meditative silence or tormented sorrow. He was always at peace, however, when we visited the ocean. Was it the sound of the waves, the sight of the shore, or the feeling of the wind that freed him from the demons of his past?

One stormy summer Sunday, when Johanna was in bed with a headache, I heard singing from Lucy's room. I didn't mean to pry, but I was interested in what was happening. It had to be Toby singing—Lucy was not even six months old—but I did not recognize the tune. Quietly, so as not to disturb them, I crept to the door.

It was wide open. I had not yet seen my daughter this morning, as Johanna usually tended her in the daytime, and then laid her down for a nap. I did, however, recall that Lucy was frightened by the thunder of the last storm we'd had, and the ground was positively shaking of it at the moment. Feeling almost guilty, I peeked into the room.

Toby was sitting next to Lucy's cradle, in one of the chairs Johanna usually used. He was more focused than I had ever seen him before, and stroked the wood of the crib as he sang.

"_Nothin's gonna harm you,"_ he sang, so softly that I was surprised that I'd been able to hear it. _"Not while I'm around," _he continued. _"Nothin's gonna harm you, Lucy, not while I'm around."_

I smiled. Such a nice song. Such a good big brother.

He glanced at the door and froze, eyes riveted on me. "Mistuh Hope," he said, sounding shocked and scared.

Embarrassed, I straightened to my full height and tried not to force a smile. "That was a lovely song, Tobias," I said.

_Well, that was __so__ normal,_ I thought sarcastically. _Way to go, Anthony—I don't ever __call__ him Tobias! Stupid, stupid…_

"Thank yeh, sir," Toby said, standing.

"Where did you learn it?"

He shuffled him feet nervously. "I dunno," he said. He looked away. "A long time ago."

"Oh," I said, and that was all.

Tobias was serious now, eyes suddenly meeting mine. Even in bright candlelight, his pale blue orbs seemed full of shadows. "I've been thinkin', sir," he said, completely expressionless, "about apprenticin' for a wigmaker."

"A wigmaker," said I.

"Yes, sir. If you don't mind, sir."

"No, no, I don't mind," I told him gently.

"I mean, I ain't complainin', sir," he quickly assured me. "I'm very grateful for wot you an' Miss Johanna did…takin' me in, an' all."

"Of course."

"It's just—I dunno, I don' like workin' with the furnace, is all."

"Really, it's okay, Tobias."

"An' maybe if I work for a wigmaker," he said, giving a shy little grin, "he could make me a wig. For my 'air."

He was making a joke, I could tell. I laughed, and the room seemed considerably cheerier, less tense.

"You know," I said, crossing to the cradle to pick up Lucy, "I know a few things about wigmaking, myself."

"Yeh do, sir?"

"Yes," I smiled, holding my daughter in my arms, "I do."

"Could yeh teach me anythin', sir?" my son asked. "If it's not too much of a bother."

"I would be delighted." I dredged up a stale eight-year-old memory. "Let me think…well, there's many shades of yellow hair, for starters."

"Miss Johanna has yella 'air," Tobias said.

"That's not exact enough, though," I told him, remembering someone telling me almost those exact same words. "Let me think…ah, yes." I rocked Lucy tenderly as I began to list them, as I rattled off the mantra that I had so meticulously memorized nearly a decade ago. _"There's tawny, and there's gold, and saffron, there's flaxen and there's blond…"_


End file.
